For a few weeks, we were experiencing serious issues on After Effects CC 2014. Render with multiprocessing enabled was not as fast as it used to be. Worse: it failed to do more than one render without restarting the app.

After a lot of tests, including uninstalling/cleaning and reinstalling Adobe CC 2014 apps one by one... We can say that current version of Creative Cloud Desktop app includes some shared component that kills multiprocessing in AE CC 2014.

We don't know which component is to be blamed... We don't know why...

So we now work with standalone apps, don't install Creative Cloud managing app and won't update any piece of Adobe software.

All we can say is this: after removing this important function in CC 2015... With no information about how CC 2016 will work on multi-CPU architectures... After removing MXF export in AE... ("But you can use Media Encoder" Do you know Media Encoder is SLOW? Media Encoder should stick to what it does well: encoding. Not rendering.)

Do guys at Adobe realize that we use these tools for work? Stop the mess!

Media Encoder should stick to what it does well: encoding. Not rendering.)

Agreed. Until the AE renderer gets more well-integrated into the Adobe Media Encoder, I always render out of AE first and then send that file to the Adobe Media Encoder. I know a lot of folks who have computer running AME set up with a watch folder on the network so that any time an AE artist finishes a render, it gets encoded to their preferred format automatically.

Plani wrote:

With no information about how CC 2016 will work on multi-CPU architectures...

The next version of AE (whatever they will call it) won't have multiprocessing's replacement yet, but it will have GPU acceleration of some native effects (at last) and a more stable preview system, so that's good. It's frustrating though that I have all these cores just sitting there when I'm working with AE and that's going to continue for a while.

As you likely know, the reason multiprocessing was removed was so they could build a brand new architecture that was capable of utilizing multiple cores in a much more efficient and useful way. This was all very exciting, but it seems to be taking them longer than expected to get there. I know just separating the renderer and the UI in CC 2015 introduced a lot more bugs than they expected which slowed development down as they went into bug fix mode.

Now, to the point of your thread:

Plani wrote:

For a few weeks, we were experiencing serious issues on After Effects CC 2014. Render with multiprocessing enabled was not as fast as it used to be. Worse: it failed to do more than one render without restarting the app.

After a lot of tests, including uninstalling/cleaning and reinstalling Adobe CC 2014 apps one by one... We can say that current version of Creative Cloud Desktop app includes some shared component that kills multiprocessing in AE CC 2014.

We don't know which component is to be blamed... We don't know why...

That's really interesting. I haven't heard anyone else mention this. I did notice that CC 2015 seemed to be rendering some things more quickly than CC 2014. I'll have to see if it's just the latest improvements to CC 2015 in version 13.7.1 or if I'm experiencing the same thing. (I only ever open CC 2014 at my freelance office to do rendering these days; the recent updates to CC 2015 just make working in it so much better.)

I don't have my timed notes with me right now but we did a lot of tests and CC 2015's render performances are significantly below CC 2014's (with MP). Without MP, there's no significant difference I've noticed. Also AE CC 2014 is a bit faster than CC 2012, so we made it our production platform.

I do know and understand Adobe removed MP in CC 2015 because of this now famous "new architecture" (even if we could write about the fact that users are still considered as some kind of beta testers... While we're dealing with pro software, this is quite annoying). But this glitch with CC Desktop App... I can't explain. Is anyone testing the apps before releasing them?

Anyway, if you or any other reader would be able to replicate our issue, that would be very interesting.

Just to make one point clear, we're working in a particular kind of workflow: promotional services for a pack of TV channels. We spent a lot of time optimizing our graphics AE-projects, so we can render fast. We have to render a lot of comps a day in order to ingest them back to Avid. We're not doing VFX, we don't care about 3D integration: we have to deliver. That may help some of you figuring why I'm so concerned about render speed.

Talking about Avid, MXF is the perfect wrapper to exchange video files between this NLE and After Effects... But After can't deliver MXF anymore. "Why complaining?" This is just THE professional format. If someone in Adobe crew is reading these lines, here are my two cents: don't ask why, don't even think. Bring it back. Pros need it. Period.

Just to make one point clear, we're working in a particular kind of workflow: promotional services for a pack of TV channels. We spent a lot of time optimizing our graphics AE-projects, so we can render fast. We have to render a lot of comps a day in order to ingest them back to Avid. We're not doing VFX, we don't care about 3D integration: we have to deliver. That may help some of you figuring why I'm so concerned about render speed.

Talking about Avid, MXF is the perfect wrapper to exchange video files between this NLE and After Effects... But After can't deliver MXF anymore. "Why complaining?" This is just THE professional format. If someone in Adobe crew is reading these lines, here are my two cents: don't ask why, don't even think. Bring it back. Pros need it. Period.

Julien

Then do your AE work in AE CC 2015, and render using multiprocessing in AE CC 2014. The project files will open.

Did you completely uninstall the the CC desktop app or just kill it? I don't use mine either but I did not know that I could completely uninstall it. I would love to delete it and would love faster render times but i did not know uninstallation was an option.

I've been able since this test to redo complete un/reinstallation of all apps we need (AE, Photoshop, Illustrator) using standalone setups. Everything works. Our team is warned not to launch Application Manager or any update service.

Going to give this a go later this weekend... Will let you guys know if I see the same thing... These renders times are horrible for how much CPU and GPU this machine has... My iMac smokes it in render times and CPU usage...

So not a huge improvement in performance numbers... But definitely 20% more of my CPU is being utilized...

The big difference however is in render times... Was taking 10+ hour to render the scene before and now it is taking around 4!!! Crazy!!!

All i did was uninstall all adobe CC junk and had to talk to support to get a stand alone AE cc14 download.. However I can not get a serial number for the install because adobe is phasing out serial numbers and moving entirely to CC managed apps... FML

Adobe just straight up WTF!!! Stop screwing with us...

p.s. Yes I know I am missing a render element... this was just to test to see what render times would be on AE cc 14 only...

Adobe isn't saying anything. The planned speed optimizations may have nothing to do with multiprocessing as you're used to it. The best anyone can say outside the AE home office in Seattle is, "sometime". Now you know what everyone else knows.